The work was done at the JA Date Mirai Koori Branch on August 8. 1020 peaches were selected first from all the peaches harvested in the town which cleared the standards for sweetness and size. From those 1020 peaches, 180 was carefully hand-picked that were of particularly high physical beauty in terms of shape and color, and packed in the boxes.

The town is well-known for its peaches. It is more than 60 kilometers away from TEPCO's Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, but it has suffered baseless rumors after the nuclear accident. According to the JA Date Mirai, the prices of this year's peaches are about 70 to 80% of the pre-disaster prices. Co-op president [of the branch] Nobuo Ohashi (age 64) says, "Farmers are proud to be offering to the Imperial Family. We will fight the baseless rumors and do our best."

Baseless rumors. Many farmers and government officials in Fukushima have said "baseless rumor" to any detection of radioactive materials less than the government safety standards (first it was 500 becquerels/kg provisional limit, then the current 100 becquerels/kg, for cesium), even though the testing was "monitoring" - i.e. sampling - and less than 1% of vegetables shipped were tested at least initially.

So how "baseless" (radioactive) are the peaches from this particular town (Koori-machi) this year? According to the Fukushima prefectural government site, a government-funded organization is measuring the radiation of the peaches grown in Fukushima. It is still a sample monitoring, taking peaches from all peach growers in Fukushima. The measurement is done using NaI scintillation survey meter, and as long as there is no detection above 50 becquerels/kg, the organization declares it "safe".

Koori-machi's percentage of peaches with cesium between 25 to 50 Bq/kg is the second highest among cities and towns whose peaches are being tested. (The highest percentage, 3%, is from Date City.)

They don't even know (or care to know) exactly how much below 25 Bq/kg.

There are a few tests of peaches from Koori-machi done by the prefectural government, using the germanium semiconductor detector. So far this year, two samples out of 6 tested positive for radioactive cesium, and the highest was 10.24 Bq/kg. Detection limits are rather high, between about 5 and 10 Bq/kg.

(Screen capture of the Fukushima Prefecture's "Fukushima Shin Hatsubai" search result of the sampling tests of peaches in Koori-machi, in English)

The tweet with the link to this Yomiuri article was tweeted by someone I follow, a university researcher who has been vigorously testing the everyday food items that are being sold in the marketplace and cautioning people. He tweeted the link, and and his comment was "With no comment".

I've read anecdotes of farmers in Fukushima, shyly offering visitors if they would like to try their pickled vegetables (or any other food items) that they grew and made, saying "Only if you want to try, we have it tested and there was no radioactive material". I think it's a sad, painful story. But the farmers in the above Yomiuri article don't seem to have any problem, pushing their produce to the Imperial Family which has small children.

Oh yes it's all because of TEPCO's accident, and the farmers are victims.

If they're seeing 25 bq/kg, I'm guessing that peach juice concentrate from Fukushima would have qualified as nuclear waste, requiring disposal in special containers, if it was being shipped before 11-MAR-2011.

Not safe. Emperor's household should pack the gift peaches in a waterproof, sealed lead-lined box and bury it on the palace grounds for 300 years. Thank you Fukushima farmers for your thoughtful annual gift. Thank you TEPCO also for your contribution.

As an alternative, the imperial household could organize a party whereby the imperial family kids are allowed to eat as many peaches as they want. If there are not enough participants, kids frome the Noda, Edano and Hosono families could be invited.Or they could do nothing of the above and just send the peaches back where they came from: no thank you.Whichever they do, I would like to see it on TV.Beppe

A few weeks ago peaches from Fukushima were on display for sale right at the entrance of a La*son shop close to where I live. A discount supermarket chain in the same area was selling tomatoes coming from "several regions" according to the label of the shelf but being marked as coming from Fukushima on their individual plastic box.

According to professor Takeda the limit for burying radioactive waste has been increased from 8,000 to 10,000 Bq/kg in July.If anyone hoped for any sort of dialog with this government these news set clearly the tone of the conversation.Noda & Co. are taking actions that go in the direction of reducing Tepco liabilities at the expense of the citizens health, including their right to choose what flour they eat and what level of risk they want to take. Another bit of democracy down the drain.Surprisingly flour producers from non contaminated areas are silent too.Beppe

About my coverage of Japan Earthquake of March 11

I am Japanese, and I not only read Japanese news sources for information on earthquake and the Fukushima Nuke Plant but also watch press conferences via the Internet when I can and summarize my findings, adding my observations.

About This Site

Well, this was, until March 11, 2011. Now it is taken over by the events in Japan, first earthquake and tsunami but quickly by the nuke reactor accident. It continues to be a one-person (me) blog, and I haven't even managed to update the sidebars after 5 months... Thanks for coming, spread the word.------------------This is an aggregator site of blogs coming out of SKF (double-short financials ETF) message board at Yahoo.

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